Studying Natural Selection: Weekly Blog #6

https://answersingenesis.org/natural-selection

Summary

This week in science, I learned how natural selection impacts the world today, and how it occurs. Natural selection is when certain traits are passed onto offspring to be the most fit for the environment. Natural selection is the only kind of evolution that leads to adaptations among a  species. Charles Darwin is the one that discovered these occurrences while in his studies. He did his expedition on the HMS beagle, and made a book named the origin of species. On his expedition, he found finches from different islands. Darwin studied these finches, and concluded that they all came from a common ancestor. Darwin also noticed that each of the finches were varied in their physical characteristics to fit their certain environments. This was most prominent in their beaks shape and size. Their was different types of foods growing in the island they inhabited, so in order to survive their beak shapes changed to what was necessary for consumption of food.

S&EP - Using Models

I used models to explain and predict behaviors of systems when I did the finches lab. In this lab we took the roles of different types of finch beaks to pick up different materials. This shows an example of how the finch beaks were different from each other, and were strongly suited in some areas but not others. This gives an example of natural selection due to some finch beaks being better than others at certain tasks. It was shown through the data that we collected from a model that the beaks and had strengths and weaknesses, depending on the type of food they were collecting.

XCC - Cause and Effect

A great example of cause and effect would have to be in the peppered moths. The situation of the peppered moths dates back to the first industrial revolution when there was smog covering the trees. Before this, the bark trees used to be white, and a great environment for the peppered moths. This was because of their ability to camouflage in these trees due to their light colored patterns. When the smog came along and made the white bark trees black, the white spotted moths had a hard time surviving, due to them being easily spotted. Because there wasn't only white colors within their genes, the dark moths started to only reproduce and fit better in their habitats. This is a great example of cause and affect because when the moths were white, the effect was them being able to camouflage. Another cause and affect scenario is when the trees got covered in smog, the affect was the black colored moths reproducing and making them hard to spot once again.